Residents of Najaf stand in front of the shrine of Imam Ali, hours after witnesses say that two Muslim clerics were assassinated while attending a reconciliation meeting at the shrine Thursday April 10, 2003 in Najaf, central Iraq. (AP Photo / Ed Wray) less

Residents of Najaf stand in front of the shrine of Imam Ali, hours after witnesses say that two Muslim clerics were assassinated while attending a reconciliation meeting at the shrine Thursday April 10, 2003 in ... more

One of Iraq's holiest Muslim shrines became a slaughterhouse of religious infighting Thursday in a shocking sign of how hard it may be to put that war-torn nation back together again.

Two leading Muslim clerics on a peace mission -- one a Saddam Hussein loyalist and the other just back from exile -- were hacked to death by crowds inside the famous Imam Ali mosque in Najaf.

Experts on the volatile religious and political scene in post-Hussein Iraq say the killings show the dangers of the sudden power vacuum in Iraq, and how fast joy and jubilation can turn to death and recrimination.

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"There will be a lot of vendettas," said Georgetown University Professor John Esposito, author of "Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam."

"It's going to make some people nervous to see how deep these divisions run. "

Both slain Muslim leaders were of the Shiite branch of Islam, which has its own divisions. Haider al-Kadar was a loyalist of Saddam Hussein and a member of the Iraqi leader's ministry of religion; Abdul Majid al-Khoei was the son of one of the Shiites' most respected spiritual leaders, who had long faced persecution under Hussein.

Al-Khoei had urged Muslims not to resist U.S. and British troops. He returned last week from exile in London.

Al-Khoei and al-Kadar had hoped Thursday's meeting would be a signal of reconciliation, and the U.S. military had even brought reporters into Najaf to witness their coming together.

According to the Associated Press, however, the scene at the shrine erupted into mayhem after an armed mob consisting of followers of another Shiite leader, Mohammed Baque al-Sadr, started screaming at al-Kadar, the Hussein loyalist. Al-Sadr was killed by Hussein's men two years ago.

There are conflicting accounts about what happened next. But al-Khoei and al-Kadar were apparently rushed by the mob and stabbed and shot to death after al-Khoei exclaimed that the display of weapons in the shrine was sacrilege.

Esposito said al-Kadar was widely seen by Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority as "someone who had sold out during a long period of accommodation to Saddam." Hussein and most members of his government were Sunni Muslims.

Esposito warned that the bloodshed in Najaf could be the first of many acts of revenge. He said the violence points to the broader difficulties of bringing together Sunni and Shiite Muslims, along with various factions among the Kurdish population in northern Iraq.

"It will be very difficult for the Bush administration to pull this off," Esposito said.

Professor Laura Nader, an anthropologist and Middle East expert at UC Berkeley, said Thursday's violence also reflects the anger many Iraqis feel toward exiled leaders who return with the blessings of the United States.

"Returnees are often very despised," Nader said. "They are seen as not having gone through all the suffering, and their loyalties may be questioned."

Al-Khoei, who returned from exile on April 3, is the son of Ayatollah Abul- Qassim al-Khoei, who until his death in 1992 was seen for decades as the supreme religious leader in Iraq.

Until his killing Thursday in Najaf, the younger al-Khoei was working with Ayatollah Ali Mohammed Sistani, who at age 75 is now considered "the most learned of the learned" mullahs of Iraqi Shiism.

Najaf is the traditional center of Shiism, which arose in the wake of the Prophet Mohammed's death in the year 632, when factions struggled over who would succeed the founder of the Muslim faith.

The Shiites -- also called the Shia -- backed Ali ibn Abi Talib, who was both the prophet's cousin and son-in-law, having married Mohammed's daughter. Ali lost out in that power struggle but was eventually elected as the fourth Caliph, or successor, to Mohammed. His tomb in Najaf is known among Shiites as Mashhad Gharwah, or the "wondrous place of martyrdom."

Observers of the Iraqi religious scene say Ayatollah Sistani hopes to restore Najaf as the center of world Shiism -- taking the spotlight away from Tehran and followers of the more radical Shiite movement of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of the Islamic revolution in Iran.